If Michael Did This He'd Be a Serial Killer

One night in July 2012 Aaron Hernandez was Cure Lounge in Boston. While he stood near the dance floor, Daniel Abreu, dancing nearby, bumped into him, causing him to spill some of his drink. Abreu, who had never met Hernandez, smiled and kept dancing.
Hernandez was livid. At 2:30 a.m. July 16, Hernandez followed the BMW Abreu was driving and fired five shots into the sedan, killing Abreu and his friend Safiro Furtado, according to police.

If everyone in New Jersey behaved liked this there would be zero men aged 21-35 in the entire state. One time Michael had just purchased a $13 vodka and Red Bull and as soon as he turned around some douche danced right into him, spilling at least 11 dollars worth.

Then there was one time Billy was wearing a white shirt, and I don't remember the circumstances but somehow a cranberry juice drink got splattered all over his back. He looked as if he was covered in blood. But it was on his back, so Michael and I just told him that you couldn't even notice.

Not to make light of a serious situation, but it is kind of funny in a macabre way just how fuckin nuts Aaron Hernandez was and probably still is.

Feels Like Old Times

Seeing as how this is Syracuse's final year in the Big East it seemed like a good idea to get to as many games as possible in the old cities before those games were no longer played. I couldn’t go to UConn because it was a Wednesday night, there is no MSG game vs. St John’s but that rivalry is continuing, Rutgers did not host SU this year (maybe I should have planned this better) but we did get one more game against Seton Hall at the Prudential Center.
Billy and Michael were in, Pizza Parlor Derek drove up for the occasion and the entire Beers mispochen made it, though fashionably late.
First order of business was to eat at Dinosaur BBQ, a Syracuse staple, of which the Newark location is basically right in front of the arena.



A really good idea. Such a good idea that everyone else thought of it too. I arrived 3 hours before tip time and was told there was a 4-hour wait. Not sure how reliable that is because so many people were just camping out at their tables and not leaving until the game starts. So we gave up on that and tried to other restaurants which were just as crowded. Then we stumbled into Loft 47, which had an entire section that was closed off. We literally grabbed a table and some chairs and moved it into the seating area. This seemed like a great idea at the time until we realized no server was assigned to a table that previously had not existed. The service was terrible, I was given crab legs instead of a crab lump and it took almost an hour to bring our food which I had to scarf down. But it’s better than standing around Dinosaur for 4 hours.
We finally arrived at the game in plenty of time to take our seats. Seton Hall and the Prudential Center releasing tickets piecemeal, at first offering only the lower bowl. Once that sold out they offered the first two rows of the upper level. And since Ticketmaster now allows you to choose your actual seat, by clicking on a dot, I chose seats that were perfectly aligned with center court. The view was amazing. The seats weren’t great as in being close to the floor, but it was sort of like sitting right behind home plate in a upper level at a baseball game. You’re not close, but the vantage point is amazing.



We got a really good look at the 2-3 zone which got torched early. But then the Orange got hot, especially Brandon Triche and ended the half on a 22-9 run. The rest of the game was pretty unremarkable with SU maintaining a solid lead, but not blowing them out. The best part was the crowd reaction to Fuquan Edwin's baskets. (They're not booing, they're saying Foo.) I tried to convince one of the Beers kids to change his name to Fuquan but they're too savvy for that.

One annoying trend that has emerged recently, and I am guilty of it too (especially when I am unable to check in at a game on Facebook) people spend way too much time on their phones during games. You pay for the ticket, you're surrounded by thousands of people, presumably some of them are your friends and all you do is text on the phone. I forbade people from using their phones while the ball was in play. Pizza Parlor Derek blatantly disobeyed me. I thought he was very disappointed that we didn't get to eat at Dinosaur. But turns out he was just tweeting. After the game I read several funny tweets from him which I would have enjoyed had he just said them to me.

But after the game we did retire to Dinosaur for a drink (not a brisket) and I had a nice chat with PPD. And next time we'll know that we have to arrive at Dinosaur four hours before game time in order to get a table. Unfortunately, there won't be a next time.

Maybe This is How Coach Died

I'm not quite sure of all the details but I wasn't there but I remember a story about Beers slipping on ice, and getting furious at Coach for laughing.
Maybe this story will help explain what happened to Coach:

"A group of Evanston, Illinois friends thought it was funny when a man fell on the ice, but the situation quickly turned ugly when the fallen man drew a gun and shot one of them.
When the group saw a man fall on the ice, they started to laugh at him, but he wasn't amused. The man pulled a gun and fired a shot, striking the victim in the ankle, the report said."

Alison and Billy's Wedding

Another domino falls! Little Billy, whom I first met 12 years ago when he was remixing "This Is How We Do It" on his computer is now a married man.

The festivities took us back to Philadelphia.

Traffic, dropping Diesel at the kennel and a ridiculous lack of sleep almost made Mrs. Poop and I late to the rehearsal dinner but we got there just in time to shower and hustle to the rehearsal for Bill to explain to us what a chuppah is.

At the rehearsal dinner, we practiced eating (I still know how!) and Mrs. Poop caught up on baby talk with Mrs. E-Z and Erin. The three of them even went across the street to a baby clothes store...and bought nothing.

Bill took a moment to introduce all of his groomsmen which led to the most inexplicable moment of the evening. When Bill was talking about me, Alison interjected "I swear they're separated at birth." Then Michael interjected "Mary J. Blige." I think he meant that Billy and I are brothers from another mother, and that mother is Mary J. Blige.

Friday night ended with everyone back at the hotel bar. Let me say this, I hate paying $7 for a beer ($21 for 3 yeunglings) but I really enjoyed the hotel bar. At these events I like talking to people I haven't seen in a while and the bar setup, with couches made it easy to hop from cluster to cluster and say hello to everyone, especially the people I don't see that often, like my long lost brother Smokey. And it's nice and quiet (I hate loud bars) so I could hear everyone, even Kristin who seemed to break out of her shell for the first time this weekend, which was nice to see. Plus when Pizza Parlor Derek finally walked in everyone cheered his arrival and he didn't even go upstairs, just started drinking with his luggage in the corner. After the hotel bar closed and they gave me my bill (I thought if you charge it to the room you don't really have to pay), I tried to get some sleep, as I was working on about 3 hours.

Mrs. Poop and I slept so late we missed the gay couples sight-seeing tour, but we did wake up early enough to get cheesesteaks for lunch, or so we thought. We sent Horse, Smokey and PPD to Jim's (or was it Rick's?), but the line was so damn long, that I didn't have time to wait, and Mrs. Poop and Baby Poop, didn't have the patience to wait, so Josh and I walked to Wawa. Wawa was a terrible way to introduce Mrs. Poop to cheesesteaks, but I enjoyed mine.

Then it was time for the wedding. We traveled around the city taking pictures in front of fountains, in front of the LOVE sign and in the middle of the street. Should be some cool photos for the wedding album.

The wedding was held in Philadelphia, so it was sort of weird, because you had this nice outdoor ceremony but you had the sights and sounds of the city.




There was a guy parallel parking a Prius, a hot girl on her way back from the pool, Horse staring at her, but most memorably, the valets somehow got stuck with a car that wouldn't start. So they were pushing this car, right behind the bride and groom, where we were looking, hard not to notice. But it was a beautiful ceremony, Billy stomped the glass easily on his first try, and he broke the glass, not his leg and the party began.





I love cocktail hours. And I was the first one on line and I took a huge plateful of shrimp, and yes I did offer them to Mrs. Poop, but she declined. I also had two Shirley Temples. I don't know who started the trend, but at the beginning of the night everyone was drinking Shirley Temples. The bartender told me that in 10 years of bartending he'd never served so many Shirley Temples to adults.



They also had lobster tails, which were delicious, and shrimp prepared several different ways. I don't know how many shrimp I had, but midway through my second huge plate, the ocean called.

Billy and Alison walked in to theme song from Beverly Hills 90210.

Right after that they did a choreographed routine to "Candy Girl" by New Edition, but it was awesome and very creative.



All night the music was awesome, mostly because Billy (acting like Bridezilla) gave the DJ a very detailed list of songs and the order to play them in.

There was a hip-hop section and I could have sworn during "I Need a Girl" the ghost of my friend Coach came on the dance floor and sang "the sun won't shine forever but as long as it's here then we might as well shine together."



The night really started to pick up when he went into his "rock block" starting with "Living on a Prayer" and "Sweet Child O Mine." That had people, including the bride and groom, dancing on their chairs.




And speaking of dancing on chairs, we did a hora. No one loves a good hora more than me, but I felt a little lost without my partner in hora, TallSkott. Michael was a good substitute but too many non-jews were holding the chairs and I was calling for everyone to walk in circles, but it didn't quite work out that way. But most importantly, we kept the bride and groom upright.




The evening took a turn for the better when they brought out the Viennese/breakfast table. There was your normal assortments of cakes and cookies but there was also a chocolate fountain. Chocolate was flowing from everywhere. You stick something in there, and it comes out covered in chocolate. I wanted to stick my head under but Mrs. Poop forebade me. So I had some chocolate covered Oreos. Then I got to the breakfast part. There were pancakes, and sausage and yes bacon. And it was midnight. I took a little breakfast, in the hopes I could sleep later in the morning. So as I was about to eat my bacon I noticed I had a pool of chocolate on my plate from where the Oreos had been. So I tried it. Chocolate covered bacon isn't as delicious as you would think it would be.

So to recap at this wedding I ate: a lot of shrimp (if I had to guess I'd say more than 50), 2 lobster tails, 2 chocolate covered Oreos, 3 chocolate covered bacon strips, and I drank 2 Shirley Temples and about 10 beers.

Yeah probably 10 beers, which is why at some point I found myself manning a bottle of Tanqueray pouring it onto the ice sculpture and into the mouth of my fellow Redskins fan, Christian. I guess my judgment of what constitutes a shot was a little impaired at that point because the bartender came over and confiscated the bottles.

As the night came to an end a couple of special songs were played giving the groom a chance to do his Vabilla Ice Dance, and immediately the bride's family drew up annulment papers.



And then Billy instructed the DJ to play La Bamba and hand the mic to Horse. A very drunk Horse. A Horse who had been getting disgusted looks from Mrs. Horse for the last two hours starting with his magical attempt to make a lime disappear. Here's the back story on La Bamba. When Horse was just a pony, he had to learn the lyrics for a 7th grade Spanish class. He's remembered them and uses it as his go-to karaoke song. At Michael's bachelor party, Horse delivered a rousing rendition. Well, he tried to duplicate that effort and the crowd was really into it.





Regrettably, the wedding had to end, but that didn't stop the fun. Nor did it stop Horse. He began a sing-along on the bus ride back to the hotel. He started off with his second favorite karaoke song "To Be With You" by Mr. Big, the song that got him attacked on the DC Metro.

Other songs sung include "Hail to the Redskins" (by just Christian and me), "The Humpty Dance" (the girl behind me knew every single word and even admitted later that yes, she uses words that don't mean nothing like "loopid" and that she did once get busy in a Burger King bathroom. The next morning I saw her wearing a shirt that said "real women don't date Yankees fans". Needless to say, I like her.), "Before He Cheats" and several others that aren't worth remembering.

Those of us who didn't want the night to end (almost all of us) hung out in the hotel lobby til 4am.

I also want to give credit to the best man E-Z who did a great job with his speech which had something to do with a man named Horace, Wheaties and Viagra.



E-Z's speech was really about finding things you aren't really looking for. That must have been a theme for the weekend because in the elevator banks on every single floor was a huge, pentagonal cylinder full of Hershey's candy, thanks to a group from the candy company that stayed in our hotel. At first I decided to be judicious and I only took 3 York Peppermint Patties. But with each pass by one of these chocolate havens I became bolder and bolder. By 2am when I was drunk I grabbed as many as I could and when I woke up the next morning after getting yelled at for putting them on Mrs. Poop's pregnant belly, I counted I had taken 35 York Peppermint Patties (not including the 10 or so I'd eaten up until that point).



The next morning I actually woke up in time for breakfast which was nice because I obviously hadn't eaten enough so I stuffed my face with a ton of bacon and got one last chance to talk to everyone and say goodbye to the happy couple and wish them well on their honeymoon and to thank them for a beautiful fun weekend.

Bill's Bachelor Party

Everything works in cycles. We are getting older and we're getting married. Bill is towards the tail end of the cycle in the Kliq as far as marriage goes. So this bachelor party was sort of a last hurrah, at least until Pizza Parlor Derek gets married, but that could take a while.

Life intervened and plans for Montreal were scrapped so we headed down to beautiful Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. I don't golf so I skipped the Friday morning excursion in Delaware and the Thursday night trip to Buffalo Wild Wings where PPD managed to keep his fingers out of his eyes. You can read PPD's version of the events (which includes Thursday/early Friday).

On the trip down I called Bill and he told me they were on their way to Philly and they were going to grab something to eat ("we're not going to go out to dinner.") So I see a Roy Rogers on the Turnpike and I stop, maybe I would have anyway. I love Roy Rogers. One side note, I had been stuck in bad traffic at the northern most point of the Turnpike, then between exits 16 and 8a traffic was moving, but slowly. At exit 8A the traffic finally cleared and I was cruising. At that point I heard on the radio, "traffic backed up between exits 8a and 7a on the southbound side, for 13 miles". Totally untrue. This happens all the time. For the most part, traffic reports are complete bullshit.

By the time I arrive in Philly it seems everyone was waiting for me to go out to dinner. Bill is a douche. We walk to some sports bar. They say you can't get in with sneakers, until the saw 11 of us, at a time the restaurant wasn't very busy, so they decided to waive their no sneakers policy.

Instead of eating again I decided to drink my supper. At the time I was really pissed that out of 20 TVs, 19 were on the Phillies game and the other one was broken. But then I realized something that I've missed my whole life growing up in New York. We have two teams in everything. And in baseball and football, the population of New York City is split 60/40. In Philly everyone you see, everywhere you go, roots for the same teams. That's pretty cool.

After supper we headed to Show N Tel, which is a BYOB strip club. Because they don't sell alcohol it's full nude. And because you bring your own booze that are a lot of deadbeat lowlives.

One girl was wearing a very cute skirt/top combo with Phillies logos on it. I refused to give her a dollar.

Show N Tel has a thing called a hot seat. Basically you can bring a guy you hate and pay money to have a naked girl yank out his armpit hair, smack him in the face and twist his nipples.

I can throw a dollar bill and hit a balloon knot from 15 feet away.

Horse has sleep apnea. Michael and I diagnosed him while listening to his snoring and intermittent choking. Of course, this didn't bother me at all, I fell asleep in two minutes, but it kept Michael up all night. At 8 am he woke me and asked if I wanted to go to breakfast. I chose a few more hours of sleep and Michael enjoyed breakfast on his own, dining on french toast while getting annoyed by a gay waiter.



Saturday was paintball day. First we stopped at a local WaWa which has touch screen ordering which is a good thing but it can be very confusing. Because each screen presents you with a bunch of different options, if you get caught up in it and forget what you previously selected, you can end up with a tuna sandwich with chipotle sauce, provolone, pickles and sweet peppers.

If you ever have to get somewhere on time. Do not let Billy drive. Despite internet directions and several phone calls to the paintball place, we still made about 5 U-Turns including one where the sign said "paintball" with an arrow straight, and Bill made a right.

I'm not going to describe the paintball game in detail except to say some of us took it lightly, others took it seriously. Michael, Aaron and I had never played before and were just happy to run around like fools. Greco obviously plays a lot (even though it screws up his softball swing), as he came in full gear including a silly hat and a paint grenade. Horse also took it too seriously, as he does everything, and he pelted Josh with a barrage of paintballs that left Josh welted and furious.

Most of us bought paper thin camo suits which didn't really do much except make us look cool. PPD ripped his. It was fun to play but it was a little too hot and I tired quickly. I also got shot twice in the neck, which left huge red marks that look like hickeys. And one time I got shot right on the thumb which hurt so fuckin bad.

After paintball we went back to the hotel to clean up and get ready for dinner at Philly's finest steakhouse, Geno's or Pat's. We ordered in English and enjoyed our delicious dripping cheesesteak. I had wiz wid. I actually wanted peppers and mushrooms but Geno's only had onions.



Smokey having never been to either one, tried the steaks from both then offered a gourmet's analysis of the finer points of each one. I think he was disappointed that Boyz II Men wasn't out front singing "Motown Philly." This weekend did nothing to diminish the brotherly bond that Smokey and I feel towards each other. I really think I am more likely to be related to him than I am to Master Bates or Step On Me.

Saturday night we went classy and headed over to Crazy Horse Too. Things didn't really pick up until a group of African-American gentleman sat next to the stage with three huge stacks of bills. And they weren't just ones. The girls were loving it, and these guys were making it rain, heavily on the stage. Josh sensing an opportunity bought the guys drinks. And that kindness was revisited upon us tenfold at least. These guys were throwing so much money around, they easily spent 10 grand that night. At one point one guy threw a stack of 20 $5 bills onto the stage. And of course everyone was trying to guess their profession. They were either rappers, athletes or drug dealers.

The saddest place in the world is on the steps of a strip club at 3am, waiting for a cab that may never come. The girls were coming out in their sweatpants without makeup, and we were still sitting there.

This was made even sadder still by the fact that we don't have too many more of these opportunities left.

Does Anyone Know How To Read Anymore?

The reaction to a study written about in the New York Times, about racial bias by NBA officials has puzzled me.
Supposedly intelligent people like Michael and SCZA and an idiot like Charles Barkley all said the same thing, "of course there are more fouls called on black players, most of the NBA players are black."
That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard because that's not what the study says. The study says fouls are called on black players at a higher rate than white players by white referees.
At a higher rate. Not in total, but at a higher rate.
In fact, the study adjusted for factors like the players’ positions, playing time and All-Star status; each group’s time on the court (black players played 83 percent of minutes, while 68 percent of officials were white); calls at home games and on the road; and other relevant data.

Now that we understand what the study is saying (I hope), let's explain logically why it is nonsense.

1) The study states that white referees call 4.1% more fouls against black players than white. 4.1% is not negligible, but I don't view it to be enormously significant. It's within an expected range of variation.
2) They didn't study individual officials, only crews as a whole which often have a mixed racial makeup. So no consideration was taken about which ref actually made the call.
3) There's no way to determine which calls were correct and which were incorrect and which were questionable. And if you want to prove bias I think you have to show that black players were unjustly called for fouls white players wouldn't have been.
4) In correct for playing time and other factors, some of those (such as a player's all-star status, and even his position) are subjective factors.
5) As SCZA, correctly points out, most of the European players (minus Tony Parker and Boris Diaw) are white, and they tend to play less aggressively and therefore may realistically be expected to commit fewer fouls. Also, and I'm not sure about this but I think white players are more likely to play less foul prone positions (point guard) than black players (most of the centers are black).
6) What did they do about Yao Ming? And Jason Kidd? Did half his fouls count against each race?

In summary this study is stupid and pointless but not as stupid as people who say of course more fouls are called on black players, there are more black players in the NBA.

Michael Wins Again

Congratulations to Michael for following up his victory in tournament challenge with another impressive victory in Draft Forecast.
It was a difficult first round to predict with Brady Quinn throwing a monkey wrench into the works by falling from 3rd (where most people had him) to 22.
Michael nailed 6 of the first 8 picks dead on and that was enough for the victory.
I finished last, getting only one pick exactly right (Adrian Peterson).
The biggest surprise thoough was that the little blond kid figured out how to use a computer and actually finished second in our little group.
The overall winner, not coincidentally titled "never kissed a girl," got 12 of 15 picks right on the head. He's going to get a Hummer, definitely the first of his life.

A Birthday Present for Michael

Since I started my new, new schedule a couple weeks ago I have been driving home and falling asleep at around 10am. Here in New York that means I can listen to Joe Beningo scream or Max Kellerman pontificate. I choose Max Kellerman. He really is on a higher plane of understanding than the rest of us.
His analysis of the whole Rutgers/Imus thing was brilliant right down to the hypothetical he posted to Mike Greenberg:
"Let's say a team from Israel came here on a barnstorming tour and someone said 'that's a rough looking bunch of jews, they're some big nosed jews, I'll tell you that much.' How would you feel?"

Michael is a Master Prognosticator

Congratulations to Michael for winning Paul's Poop Group in ESPN's tournament challenge.
Michael got off to a slow start but went two straight weekends - 15 games - without getting a single game wrong.
Michael's 1500 points were good enough to put him in a tie for 1606th place.
That may not sound like much but there were approximately 3 million entries.
Derrick Fleming was the winner with 1610 points, he got 58 of the 63 games right.
But back to Michael for a second. His prowess in Tournament Challenge is unparalleled. It all started in 1999 when Scoonie Friedlander led Ohio State, a 4 seed, to the Final Four, which Michael correctly predicted.
Four years later when Syracuse won it all Michael had that as well.
Thanks to all who participated, it was fun tracking the group throughout the tourney. If this were Little League you'd all be getting participation trophies.

Will They Ever Learn?

Just got a disturbing text message from Michael.
He was bragging about his perfect weekend in Tournament Challenge. True Michael did get these 12 games all right and he is now in the top 0.3% of tournament challenge entries.
But there are still three games left to play so I say to Michael what a wise man once said to me:
"Don't count your chickens before they are in your basket."